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In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Republican campaigners adopted a strategy for their advertising and rhetoric that was intended to shake the legitimacy of the House of Representatives. After decades of Democratic control of the people's house, the Republicans figured they had little to lose and much to gain if they portrayed leaders of the House, such as Speakers Tip O'Neill and Jim Wright, as morally suspect.

Using a look-alike actor, the Republican National Committee went on TV in 1980 to portray a woozy, possibly boozy Tip O'Neill driving a Lincoln Continental (symbolizing a behemoth government) so carelessly that he ran it out of gas. Republicans went on to highlight conflicts of interest and corruption among Democrats—not a hard job since the House was and remains a target-rich environment for both parties.

The political climate has grown more bitter in the past three decades, and now some Democrats are using the same idea, attempting to delegitimize the House. On modern blogs and in old-fashioned Mailbag columns, Democratic partisans complain about Republicans gerrymandering the House, drawing legislative districts to determine the outcome of some elections before the ballots are ever cast. It is said that millions of Democratic votes are "wasted" voting for Democratic candidates who were going to win anyway, making it possible for Republicans to win in other districts.

Imbalance of Numbers

Some facts do point that way: In 2012, 1.4 million more votes were cast for Democratic candidates for the House than for Republican candidates. That's a 1.2% margin of votes, yet the Republicans still control the House, 234 seats to 201. This is only the second such confounding of what is called the popular will since World War II. It's said to be unjust and undemocratic, so much so that an outraged professor of microbiology and neuroscience at Princeton University has been moved to found an election-reform consortium and write an op-ed article in the New York Times.

Using "statistical tools that are common in fields like my own," Prof. Sam Wang has discovered that politics is played to win, and that politicians do not shrink from tilting the playing field in their favor.

He could also use statistics to discover that hot air rises and that apples fall from trees, but it isn't necessary. Wang needs a computer to understand politics the way long-married people need books to understand the differences between men and women. He should understand that gerrymandering is a natural result of representative government, of electing lawmakers to represent geographic groups of citizens.

A Long Tradition

Gov. Elbridge T. Gerry of Massachusetts gave his name to the gerrymander. A signer of the Declaration of Independence in his youth, Gerry also signed a bill redistricting the state Senate after the census of 1810. The map included a long, slender, and curvaceous district, perhaps resembling a salamander, undoubtedly packed with voting members of the other party and leaving several districts newly contestable by nominees of Gerry's party. Then as now, the out-party was outraged; the in-party was undisturbed.

Go further back, before the word was coined: Virginians with long memories (are there any others?) may recall that anti-Federalist Patrick Henry helped to draw congressional districts unfavorable to Federalist James Madison to keep a primary author of the Constitution out of the first House of Representatives. (As with many political stories, there is an opposing point of view that suggests the boundaries were fair, and it is certain that despite the boundaries, Madison did indeed win the election.)

To complain about gerrymandering is often to acknowledge that one's electoral efforts are out-of-date or unappealing. Texas was often held up to ridicule for the gerrymandering used to preserve Democrats' seats. Now that so many Texans have joined the Republican party, their representatives have played tit-for-tat.

For 200 years, the game of drawing favorable districts has been played in many states, even those with enviable reputations for clean government. In states like New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and Maryland, where politics is high on the list of popular indoor sports, ward heelers march to the decennial census like soldiers marching to the sound of the cannon.

The Golden Rules

California, neither the best nor the worst in its reputation for clean government, attracts a lot of reformist notice because it is the largest state. Back when it was more evenly divided between the major parties, the late Rep. Phil Burton was considered the master string puller and mapmaker. He understood that preserving the seats of Republican incumbents was a key to drawing with a free hand elsewhere on the state map. He did this so successfully that the state sent a preponderance of Democrats to Washington, along with a few Republicans. After Burton passed on, less sophisticated Democrats so blatantly threw their weight around the map that former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was able to propose and win an initiative handing the map-drawing function to a "nonpartisan" commission.

The interesting result was that very little changed. The political geography of California is such that Democrats are in the majority in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay area, and Sacramento, while Republicans tend to live inland and in the extreme south. Drawing compact districts would concentrate partisan voting strength almost as effectively as purposeful creation of weirdly shaped districts. The only way to create evenly matched districts would be to draw many long, skinny districts, some of which would inevitably look like salamanders.

The problem applies in many states. If Democrats are concentrated in densely populated areas, there may be no way to avoid putting lots of them together in districts. That does waste surplus votes in areas where a Democratic congressman will be re-elected by huge majorities or face no Republican opposition at all. But it doesn't make the House of Representatives undemocratic, just less Democratic.